Mike Huckabee And Tony Blair’s Great Turkey Shoot

MIKE Huckabee, US presidential wannabe, has shot a pheasant. Deliberately.

“The truth is hunters are the ones who preserve the species,” says he. “In many cases extinction comes from not having some level of hunting. It’s the hunters who actually keep the wildlife alive. A lot of people think that when you hunt you’re destroying the wildlife.”

He adds: “See that’s what happens if you get in my way.”

Over here the BBC reports that the Boxing Day hunt attracted over 250,000 participants. Hunting with dogs was banned in 2005. Under the ban, dogs can still be used to follow a scent – but cannot be used to kill the fox. People still hunt, but now with the added thrill that they might be breaking the law.

Since the ban came into force, no foxes have been saved. But new Labour found a cause it could win, and it won. It showed the world that it was radical – more radical than all Labour politicians that had passed before. Ban the bomb? A referendum on a united Europe? A paedophile amnesty? No, what we really wanted was to ban fox hunting.

Here was something that would play out well in the media. Save the cuddly fox. Kill the fat upper-class twit on his horse. Kill the horse, the collaborator.

The protestors besiege the House of Commons. It looks good on the telly. One PR stunt in head on collision with another. This is no uprising. The purpose is to be heard. It is the kind of narcissism that causes disgruntled dads to wear Spiderman pyjamas and under the banner Fathers 4 Justice (“when there is a banner) make public nuisances of themselves.

Ban foxhunting. Save fox hunting. Kill germs. Save the germs. Would The League Against Cruel Sports mind if we killed wasps? Wasps are not as cuddly as foxes. But, then, have you ever cuddled a fox, a creature that looks like a maiden aunt’s coat with sharp teeth and a shifty, narrow stare.

So Huckabee shoots a pheasant and looks tough. And Tony Blair saves the fox and looks tough. And the dumb animals nod…